Sentenced for Kosovo Massacre Escaped in Serbia

So says Bekim Gashi, who in the massacre in the village of Ternje in Suhareka, lost 22 family members. He thus responds to media claims that former Yugoslav Army member Rajko Kozlline has fled Serbia, following his condemnation by the tribunal there for this war crime.

Gashi was a witness in Belgrade during Kozllin's trial and another indictee for the crime in Ternje, Pavlle Gavrilovic, a former member of Yugoslavia's Army, who has been relieved of responsibility.

I am not surprised if Kozlline is gone and will not suffer the sentence. Those courts are formal, for the sake of Europe and the world, to say that we are judging those who committed crimes. And those crimes were organized by the state, killed and then eliminated the victims. Look, 21 years now we can't find”, Gashi told Radio Free Europe.

In the massacre in Ternje, Gashi has lost his mother and four sisters, as well as 17 other family members on the part of his uncle. On the day of crime, March 25, 1999, he had managed to hide in the subsumption of the house, where he had spent two days. He saw his family being killed.

What happened to convict Kozlline?
Rajko Kozlline, in April 2019, from the Supreme Court in Belgrade has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing 15 Albanian civilians and wounding two others in the village of Tarnje in Suhareka. He has been blamed for ordering a group of soldiers and with them committing this crime.

After failing to submit to the prison sentence, the first Constitutional Court in Belgrade, on 9 September of this year has announced warrants, the Balkan Research Network (BIRN) has already published the news that Kozlley has fled the country.

What do the institutions say?

Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs has not answered Radio Europe's free questions as to whether Kozlline has fled Serbia or how it happened.

His lawyer, Nikola Hanzek, has told Radio Free Europe that he and his client were last heard in December 2019.

“I've later tried to contact him and I just don't have any information about”, Hanzek stressed

Same as from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, neither the Ministry of Justice of Serbia, they have reached answers to the questions that Radio Free Europe has asked about whether they have information from the police and will demand to issue international arrest papers for Rajko Kozllyn.

Nor has BIRN, who on October 29th published that Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs has rejected this network's request that in this case have free access to information of public interest.

BIRN has raised the question to Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs, if Kozlline has taken advantage of the border crossing to leave the country, taking into consideration that he had not filed to carry out the prison sentence. As BIRN has said, this minister has replied that the information approach would mean violation of the person's privacy rights and that there is no public interest in providing this information.

Why wasn't Kozlline in custody?

The war crimes prosecution has since 2013 filed charges against members, then still active, of the Yugoslav Army's 549 Motorised Brigade, Pavlle Gavrilovic, and Rajko Kozlline, for the crime in Tarnje.

Gavrilovic and Kozlline are accused of giving orders or of killing at least 27 civilians. The victims were men, women, and children, while the youngest was 4 years old. After they were killed, their troops allegedly took members of Serbian forces to hide in mass cemetery.

“The prison has not been assigned at all, with the reason that there is no possibility of repeating criminal work. Of course, the work can no longer be repeated because it is no longer a state of war and war crimes cannot be repeated. But, they have never been in custody”, has told Radio Free Europe, Ivana Janic from the Fund for Humanitarian Law, which in Serbia is conveying war crimes judgments.

Jeanic added that the Fund for Humanitarian Law has asked the Prosecutor for War Crimes to seek detention for the accused.

This prosecutor has not answered Radio Free Europe's question of why he has not sought detention due to the risk of escape.

Lack of Indictees During Trial

The procedure against Kozllines and Gavrilovic has lasted six months and has characterised the postponements and shortages of defendants at hearings.

“The Fund for Humanitarian Law has repeatedly stressed that the trial is often postponed because of Rajko Kozlina's hospitalization at the Military Medical Academy (VMA). Sometimes it happened that he was not presented in the main judicial review, while his defenders thereafter presented medical excuses from the Military Medical Academy”, Ivana Janic said.

From the Military Medical Academy, they have denied claims by the Humanitarian Law Centre that Serbian Army health institutions enable Gavrilovovic and Kozlina to avoid court hearings.

However, the chairman of the court, Mirjana Illic, has also voiced doubt that the accused deliberately avoided hearings, citing health problems.

In March 2019, in the courtroom, she said Kozlley and the second indictee in this case, Pavlle Gavrilovic, are often referring to health problems before the hearing, but from which they are recovering after the hearing.

This fosters serious doubts that something entirely else is happening”, Illic said in court.

“Trust for silence”

Rajko Kozlline, during the trial period, has still been an active member of Serbia's Army. The Defence Ministry has not answered Radio Europe's free question about when he retired and how they comment on the claim that he has fled the country.

“They are soldiers and I am not surprised that institutions are silent. It has been able to pass even by false passport, it has been able to pass through several unlegal border crossings. We don't know where he went and actually when he left. This is an oath of silence and a way for them to further protect themselves. It is orders for them that the state will always stand behind”, Ivana Janic of the Fund for Humanitarian Law stressed.

Support for Rajko Kozlline has also reached the addresses of extreme right. In April 2019, the unregistered association “Nisma has no surrender of Kosovo and Metohija”, on its website, has published the communiqué, in which it was said that “is unfortunate that many are washing their hands from fighters who protected our homeland”.

“We have not forgotten them and will do everything in our power to help”, says the communique.

Bekim Gashi has not expected Kozlline to serve his sentence for crimes.

“Of course the state will protect him because he has not acted as an individual, but has been a member of the Serb Army in office. If these crimes were tried in a special court, as is now the case with Kosovo, then I would expect him to receive the sentence deserved”, Gashi points out.

He never found the bodies of murdered mothers and sisters. In November 2018, Gashi had confessed to Radio Free Europe that he has received 18 times the troops of his family at the border between Kosovo and Serbia, whenever the cemetery was discovered in Serbia.